Indictment In High Profile Cold Case

posted by John Baibak -

Gary Schara, the man suspected in the death of Lisa Ziegert more than 25 years ago have been indicted by a Hampden County Grand Jury for her death.

The announcement came late Friday from the Hampden County DA Anthony Gulluni.

The DA telling reporters that the revelation is another step closer to closure for the Ziegert family.

For the last quarter of a century, a joint investigation into the disappearance and murder of Ziegert has been conducted by the Agawam Police Department, Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Hampden District Attorney’s Office, Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory, and FBI.

On April 15, 1992, twenty-four year old Lisa Ziegert, who taught at a local middle school, was abducted during the early evening hours while working at her second job at a card shop in Agawam.

She was reported missing to police the next morning, on April 16, 1992, by the store’s day clerk who arrived to find the store open, with its lights on, and Lisa’s car parked where it had been sighted the previous evening.

The money in the store’s register and Lisa’s personal property, including her purse and school materials, were recovered from the card shop by police and appeared undisturbed.

Four days later, on April 19, 1992, Lisa’s body was found, abandoned, after being sexually assaulted and killed, in a wooded area in Agawam, just off Suffield Street, approximately four miles from the card shop.

The case will now proceed in the Superior Court in Springfield according to the DA's spokesman James Leyden.